


Five years.

by TheGreenMeridian



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, First Time, M/M, coming to terms with your mortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 19:48:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20395180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreenMeridian/pseuds/TheGreenMeridian
Summary: He feels his face fall, the shock of the statement blindsiding him, changing him irrevocably. Legasov stutters an apology as he slumps onto the sofa, but he barely hears it.





	Five years.

**Author's Note:**

> It feels like forever since I’ve posted some good old fashioned Valoris smut, so here you go!
> 
> Also several gifs I’ve seen on tumblr have confirmed that the proportions of a certain part of Valery’s anatomy as mentioned in this fic are in fact canon.

He feels his face fall, the shock of the statement blindsiding him, changing him irrevocably. Legasov stutters an apology as he slumps onto the sofa, but he barely hears it. The phone is ringing, echoing as if underwater at first, ringing from another life, one where he had never come to this accursed place, ringing, ringing, ringing until he has no choice but to acknowledge it. He squares his jaw and forces himself above the waterline, just long enough to listen to the message and take it in. The Germans aren’t letting their children outside, afraid for their safety all that distance away, while his own countrymen are outside that window unaware that deadly radiation is raining down upon them. He had been furious at Valery when he had argued against the 30km exclusion zone, been furious at him now for disagreeing with him on the matter again. And now he knows he is wrong, and that the laughing children he has heard are as dead as he is. Condemned to it by his arrogant belief in the infallibility of the Party and of his own judgement. 

He lays in bed that evening, sleep unlikely to come. Dead in five years. Maybe more, maybe less. But almost certainly an unpleasant and painful death, he knows enough about radiation to be sure of that. He will not go quickly nor quietly. He will be consigned to a hospital bed towards the end, he can only hope for a short period of time, unable to do much more than feel himself wasting away and mull on his regrets. It has been so long since he has spoken to his daughter. So long since he has visited his mother’s grave. So long since he’s kissed a woman and truly meant it. He has five years to fix what mistakes he can, but where would he even start? He has 67 years of them accumulated and no idea if any of them can be changed.

He’s still stuck beneath frosted glass when they attend the meeting. He speaks as much as he is able, letting Valery (because he is Valery now, how could he not be when they are sharing a death?) pick up his slack. Besides, what could he have to say of importance anyway, compared to his scientist? Valery is the only one in this room of blind fools who sees the truth. He is likely the only one of them even capable of it. You don’t get to this level of government without losing the best of yourself along the way.

Valery glances at him with concern, and he feels nothing but guilt at how this man seemingly cares about him despite how abominable his behaviour has been. He only half listens to Valery’s awkward presentation, he’s read it in advance anyway. It doesn’t stop his gut clenching when Valery and Khomyuk request permission to kill three men. Faster deaths than he and Valery shall suffer. And yet more deaths that he will feel responsible for as he lives out his final five years.

How is Valery taking this so much better than he is? Did he know from the first that they were being sent to their graves? Boris can’t believe that he didn’t, and yet still he came. Still he spoke up. Valery is a far braver man than he could ever hope to be. Boris knows in the shameful depths of his heart that were he the scientist, he would have been far too blinded by Party loyalty and dogma to be able to believe anything serious could possibly be wrong. Christ, he probably could have stared into that open reactor himself and felt the skin on his face turn dark with the radiation and still believed in that moment that all was well in the Soviet Union. 

He finally feels himself break free of his trance when Valery looks at him with desperation in his eyes when no men volunteer to die. Something in Valery’s face touches him beneath thick layers of fugue and suddenly he is Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina again. He is Ukrainian, full of stubborn pride in his people regardless of Russian attitudes towards Ukrainian identity, and more than capable of rallying his fellows, finding that same pride within them and making them capable of agreeing to this horrific yet necessary task. He cannot lie to himself that the speech was given out of loyalty to the State or even out of necessity for their task here at Chernobyl. No, it was given because Valery needed it. Valery, who will die beside him. Valery, who will fight beside him.

Valery tells him straight when he asks how they will die, and he is thankful for it. He is equally thankful that the look on Valery’s face as he tells him is not one of pity. Rather, it is one of newfound respect. He uses Valery’s given name for the first time that night and the man’s eyes pierce into him, judging his sins and weighing his heart like some personal Anubis. Boris is emboldened by what he sees in those deep blue eyes, as Valery silently comes to his conclusion. He is worthy.

He is an odd creature, his Valery. Shy, clumsy, almost abrasive, and yet not arrogant as he had originally thought. No, Valery isn’t arrogant. He’s angry. As Boris should be himself, as they all should be. He is ashamed of himself for not having appreciated his nuances from the start, but he vows to make up for it. Valery is strong, stronger perhaps than he even knows himself, and Boris cannot help but admire him. Despite appearances, he knows he is the lesser man, and he will do his utmost to make Valery realise this truth too. Days, weeks pass and Valery becomes his primary motivation. He protects him from the politics and encourages him to share his woes, in turn confiding in him and allowing Valery to see a side of himself he has rarely shown to another soul, living or dead. They are a team of two against impossible, insurmountable odds, and he will fight to his hastened death for the man. He feels jealousy clench his heart when Valery proclaims his need for Ulana, feels heartbreak when he sees Valery’s tense shoulders and dull eyes, feels an unmistakable arousal on nights when he is alone in his too-quiet room. It should shock him, disgust him, but it does not. He has heard of KGB men marrying their secretaries, shared secrecy breeding intimacy. What could breed intimacy more than this shared fate, this shared awareness of the thousand eyes and ears tracking their every move, this shared hell? Valery is a man, but why should that matter? Why should anything but Valery matter now, in this enforced twilight of his life? 

He knows Valery feels this tension between them. The man looks at him too long, looks away too quickly when he has been caught. It is up to Boris to break their silence, he knows. His interest in Valery is less outwardly obvious, especially to a man with Valery’s social skills, and the man is simply too shy, strangely cautious for someone so willing to interrupt the General Secretary and confront Charkov. Boris could feel hurt that Valery apparently does not see him as worth the risk, but he knows Valery is simply afraid of losing a friendship that has become such an integral part of living for both of them. It is not that Valery values him too little, rather that Valery values him above all else. So it naturally falls to Boris to show Valery that what they both so desperately crave is a possibility. More than that, it is fast becoming a necessity. It is simply a case of when and where he should make his feelings known. There is too great a risk of reprisals, were he to strike up a conversation in their respective rooms, and he knows that despite the fire being out, neither of them like to spend too much time outside if they can help it.

Not that it makes much difference, they will die anyway. He mourns far more for Valery than himself. Valery is only 50, and has by his own admission little life outside of work. His death seems like far more of a waste that Boris’s own will ever be. Valery matters in a way he does not, Chernobyl would still be burning and Pripyat would be littered with corpses were it not for Valery. Boris is simply here to facilitate his demands, a job anyone could do, but one he has been lucky enough to be given.

Still, Valery’s lack of a personal life has made him wonder if Valery is untouched. He has never heard the man mention a sweetheart, he knows from his file he has never been married. Perhaps Boris will be the first to see him undressed, hard and needy and begging for touch. It is a heady thought, one he indulges in frequently. Though truthfully, Valery could be participating in bacchanalian revelries every spare moment and Boris would still desire him this intensely. It hardly matters, really, if he has been touched before. Only that Boris will be the one to touch him last. Boris has never desired someone quite so acutely. Freckled and pockmarked skin, thinning ginger hair greying around the temples, a slight paunch, a face somewhat aged before it’s time. He is not beautiful, and yet he is the most beautiful thing Boris has ever seen.

It’s a Thursday evening when Boris makes his intentions known. An opportunity presents itself, one too good to pass up. Their minders are called away, they have stayed too long for their safety (and what a joke that is, that they should be left to rot, while Charkov’s pets receive such care), and a bureaucratic mistake has meant that no replacements have been organised in time. The devices in their rooms will still be recording regardless of who is there to listen in real-time, but they can leave to find an empty room without suspicion or the theatrics of falsely slammed doors and feigned goodbyes. He is full of words when he leads Valery to one such room, yet when they enter and Valery is looking at him expectantly, he finds he cannot speak at all. He can only step forward, take that mottled cheek in his hand, and press his lips to Valery’s with barely restrained hunger. Valery responds immediately, clumsily pawing at Boris’ shirt and licking into his mouth with unpracticed yet eager motions. Boris is thankful he does not need to encourage Valery to be vocal for him, the man whines and keens and groans with every slide of Boris’ hands across his body and every slide of Boris’ tongue. They are wild, ravenous beasts, ripping off each other’s clothing and pressing their bodies together without shame or hesitation. They fall onto the bed, limbs tangling and hearts pounding.

Boris is in heaven, his Valery, touching him like this, exploring him with blunt fingers and shuddering against him. Never in his life has someone seemed so broken by sheer lust for him, and never has he been reduced to the same state for another. If Valery is untouched (and his lack of finesse leads Boris to believe that he is at the very least touched rarely), it does not seem to hold him back. That Valery’s body is so unmistakably male is not the shock he expected it to be, the hard press of Valery’s erection and the silky hair of his belly serve only to inflame him further. He wants and wants more, unable to think of what he wishes to do beyond grinding his length against this man until release can finally soothe the ache within him. But Valery, as always, is the one to lead him, sliding down his body and sucking him into the searing wet heat of his mouth, moaning low and deep as if Boris were ambrosia. Boris can do nothing but grip Valery’s hair and allow himself to be consumed by the fire, spending embarrassingly quickly down Valery’s eager throat and struggling beneath him when the flexing muscles of his throat become too much against his tender, over-sensitised flesh.

Limp, weak muscles cannot stop him from giving Valery pleasure in return, and he pulls the man up and into a kiss, the taste of his own ejaculate on Valery’s tongue startlingly arousing. He takes Valery’s dripping erection in his hand and watches with delight as the younger man’s eyes shudder close, his mouth falling open, his breaths short and strained. He had felt that it was large when it was pressed against him but now, with his fingers wrapped around this solid flesh, he can truly appreciate the size of the man. It is long, yes, but it’s the thickness that is truly impressive. Valery is undeniably bigger than him (though he is not exactly a small man), and rather than feel jealous or uncomfortable, as he now realises he had feared he would, he is enamoured with it, wishing to line himself up against it and admire the differences between them.

The organ in his hand pulses and throbs, and he cups the plump testicles beneath it, weighing them in his palm and revelling in the knowledge that they are swollen and full for him. He tugs them lightly, experimentally, and Valery gasps his name. Boris knows he has never heard anything sweeter. He strokes harder, faster, the obscenely slick sound of Valery’s foreskin sliding back and forth over his crown would be enough to bring him back to hardness were he a younger man, and combined with the needy chanting of his name from lips swollen from having been wrapped around his erection mere moments ago, it is enough to make him slowly begin to fill anew even now, at his age. He can see how close his lover is in the tight set of his brow, the clenching of his thighs and stomach, and the continuous leak of clear fluid from his tip, and he wants nothing more than to see Valery tip over the edge into oblivion at his hand.

Yet frustration is creeping into Valery’s moans, a savage, desperate fight against his own body is clearly taking place as he lingers here, so close to what he needs. He whispers a request for instruction in Valery’s ear, and Valery says that he doesn’t know in a sob that breaks his heart. And so he releases him, only briefly, settling himself between Valery’s spread legs so he has a better angle for what he wants to do next. He takes Valery in his hand again, slower, gentler than before, and admires the taut skin of his scrotum and the angry red flush of his erection. He sucks his forefinger, before sliding it between Valery’s buttocks and pressing it to the hidden prize between. Valery shudders and nods frantically, and the clenched ring of muscle flutters beneath Boris’ finger. He pushes forward slowly, astounded at how silken Valery’s inner walls are, struck with the urge to plunge himself into this hidden sanctuary to feel that delectable texture around his most sensitive flesh. His name leaves Valery in a whining exhale and he massages him from within, mimicking what he wishes to do with his member while also probing gently, seeking a spot he knows exists within women, hoping terribly that an analogue exists within men. He finds it, he knows, when his finger is grasped in an almost painful crush and a thick streak of seed finally shoots across Valery’s bare chest, followed by another, and another, painting him from his chin to his stomach, a few final spurts dribbling down his length and over Boris’ fingers, all the while accompanied by Valery’s savage moans.

He eases his finger from Valery’s body, slightly concerned about the pained hiss this causes but placated by the soft ‘oh, too much...’ that follows. He carefully lets go of Valery’s softening length and experimentally licks his fingers, deciding that though 67 is a strange age to first realise it, he is not at all opposed to the bitter, chemical taste of another man’s release. Though he cannot conceive of wanting another man, indeed, another person to anywhere near the same degree he wants Valery. He tenderly wipes the man’s body clean with his undershirt and pulls him in close, warming as Valery places a lazy kiss to his chest as he buries his face into the grey hair across Boris’ pectorals.

“I think I may be in love with you Boris,” Valery says quietly and with far less hesitation than Boris would have expected. And Boris realises in that moment that he is utterly in love with Valery, too.

**Author's Note:**

> thegreenmeridian.tumblr.com


End file.
